ScrollBoss’s Custom Superman Sprites Are Arcade-Quality Awesome

You know that Superman arcade game that Taito put out in the late '80s? I remember seeing that thing and looking at the Player 2 sprite that they made with Superman, the one whose costume was red and silver, and being obsessed with that guy. Who was he?! Is there a second Superman?! It blew my mind --- that game is legitimately the Superman Red/Superman Blue of my generation, for a very specific definition of "my generation" that involves a trip to Myrtle Beach in the summer of 1989.

It's been a while since I thought about him, though, but when ScrollBoss posted a whole bunch of custom-made Superman sprites that involved not just the Man of Steel himself, but variations and characters inspired by him, that's the one that grabbed my attention. It's far from the only great one, though.

Created by artist James Beaver, the set of Superman variations are only a small part of a much larger gallery of custom and edited sprites based on DC heroes --- you can find the whole thing at his site, including sprites for characters like Amanda Waller, Darkseid and the Golden Age Flash. The Superman set, though, is an ongoing project, and the idea of taking all of these variations and putting them into a pose inspired by the Taito arcade game is pretty great.

As for who we've got, Beaver gets some solid analogues in there, including Captain Marvel and Icon, but he goes for a couple of pretty deep cuts, too --- I was stumped by the guy with the dark suit and goth eyes until CA's own Elle Collins identified him as the Superman of the SuperFriends' Universe of Evil.